Keith E. Johnson
Vice President and General Manager of Federal, Spire Global, Inc.
Keith Johnson started the federal business unit for Spire Global, Inc. in 2017 to focus on the U.S. government. Under his leadership, the unit has grown to become an integral space partner to the federal government and global organizations. With work in maritime, aviation, space services and Earth intelligence, Spire doesn’t plan to slow down anytime soon.
“We have over 100 functional nano satellites in orbit, providing our customers with the ultimate vantage point — space — to enable organizations to act now and make smarter, better, faster decisions about what to do next in a rapidly changing world,” he said.
When thousands of flights were grounded because of the pandemic, weather forecasters scrambled to secure the additional data essential to their forecasting — normally pulled from sensors aboard commercial aircraft. Johnson realized Spire could help and approached agencies reliant on AMDAR/TAMDAR data from aircraft to cover any data shortages.
At no cost, Spire provided data to the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts and the United Kingdom Met Office, which shared the data with the USAF for its Global Forecast System.
Johnson has also been instrumental in many of Spire’s customer wins. For example, after initially securing work with NASA in 2018, Johnson played a key role in Spire’s 2020 deal with NASA to provide radio occultation data, which is available to agency scientists for use in their Earth-observing missions.
Why Watch
Spire is poised to play a pivotal role providing data in the coming years — both with the increased government adoption of new space technologies and the Biden administration’s commitment to climate change measures.
Johnson is excited to continue to get the word out about Spire and the advances the company and his team are making to elevate the small satellite industry.
With the recently announced merger with special purpose acquisition company NavSight Holdings, Inc., Spire also is expected to go public this year, which will help enable Spire to scale its subscription-based services, launch additional satellites and strengthen its leading data analytics capabilities.